Can In-Line Iodine Value Predictions (NitFom^TM) Be Used for Early Classification of Pork Belly Firmness?

Commercial technologies for assessing meat quality may be useful for performing early in-line belly firmness classification. This study used 207 pork carcasses to measure predicted iodine value (IV) at the clear plate region of the carcass with an in-line near-infrared probe (NitFom^TM), calculated IV of belly fat using wet chemistry methods, determined the belly bend angle (an objective method to measure belly firmness), and took dimensional belly measurements. A regression analysis revealed that NitFom^TM predicted IV (R² = 0.40) and belly fat calculated IV (R² = 0.52) separately contributed to the partial variation of belly bend angle. By testing different NitFom^TM IV classification thresholds, classifying soft bellies in the 15th percentile resulted in 5.31% false negatives, 5.31% false positives, and 89.38% correctly classified soft and firm bellies. Similar results were observed when the classification was based on belly fat IV calculated from chemically analyzed fatty acid composition. By reducing the level of stringency on the percentile of the classification threshold, an increase in false positives and decrease in false negatives was observed. This study suggests the IV predicted using the NitFom^TM may be useful for early in-line presorting of carcasses based on expected belly firmness, which could optimize profitability by allocating carcasses to specific cutout specifications.